Explore sign

Explore sign

color:#252423;background:#F0F2F4">Savannah’s Telfair Museums is showcasing the lives of urban enslaved people in a new exhibit opening Nov. 16.

Shannon Browning-Mullis is curator of history and decorative arts for the Telfair Museums, which operates the house. She takes us on an audio tour.

 

 

color:#252423;background:#F0F2F4">The urban slave quarters came to light in 1990 during a renovation of the Owens-Thomas carriage house. It revealed original fireplaces, floors and ceilings painted “haint blue” a color used by the Gullah people to keep ghosts away. 

color:#252423;background:#F0F2F4">“Half the people here at any given time were enslaved people and half were Owens or Thomas or Richardson family members," Browning-Mullis
color:#252423;background:#F0F2F4">said. "So we’re able to talk fully about this wasn’t a segregated space. These people were interacting on a daily basis in very close ways.”

color:#252423;background:#F0F2F4">This is the first and only conserved urban slave quarters in Georgia open to the public.

Exterior of urban slave quarters as seen from garden

Exterior of urban slave quarters as seen from garden

Wall of names of some of the enslaved people who worked at the Owens-Thomas properties

Wall of names of some of the enslaved people who worked at the Owens-Thomas properties

Original fireplace

Original fireplace

Ceiling painted

Ceiling painted "haint blue," a Gullah cultural expression

Bedroom vignette

Bedroom vignette

Bed on the floor

Bed on the floor

Garden separating slave quarters from main house

Garden separating slave quarters from main house

Tabby wall of the cistern that supplied indoor water to the house

Tabby wall of the cistern that supplied indoor water to the house

Tags: dwelling  urban slave  owens-thomas  shannon browning-mullis  telfair  conservation  African-American history  gullah  history  Slavery